Monday, 8 September 2014

#Forage2Glass Cocktail Class & Gin

I didn't like gin until two years ago at Parklife festival, where a friend passed me a litre of Gordon's mixed with warm tonic and three lime slices. Classy.

Since that day I've grown to love it, craving nothing more on a Friday afternoon than gin sloshed over ice, crackly-fizzy tonic and a chunk of lime... oooh (it's Monday night: four more days, people!).

Anyway. I went foraging for cocktail ingredients with the Caorunn gin crew on Saturday; apparently foraging has become quite a thing of the moment! Stereotypes fully embraced, I donned a rain jacket and trainers...

We set off onto the Pennines in pouring rain, but David, our forage guide, wasn't going to let a bit of water put us off.

We found the five botanical ingredients found in Caorunn gin: Rowan Berries, Dandelion, Apple, Bog Myrtle and heather. We also found Sloe berries, mugwort, blackberries and a whole heap of other foragy-stuff.

In all seriousness, and I never thought I'd say this, foraging was great fun. From a health perspective it was interesting to learn about all the fruits, herbs & edible plants on my doorstep. Did you know there are 565 variations of blackberries in the UK, and 6000 types of apple?!

If you fancy a forage (oh, cheeky), David's company Discover the Wild can be found on Twitter here.

After we'd dried off and driven back to Manchester, The Lawn Club had cooked us lunch and foraged 'Wild Urban Bramble' cocktails were being made.

They tasted so good. Caorunn gin leaves poor old Gordon's on another level, it's smooth & spicy and really refreshing.

If you fancy trying a foraged cocktail, you can sample the very one above at Elixir Tonic & Treats - for this week only!